Outside the Box

In 2002 I wrote a scene that was part of a full-length play on multi-racial/cultural issues about the problem of checking boxes - that is, having to fit oneself into a single category, whether that category fit the actual person or not. Black, white, Democrat, Republican... and so this quote in last week's New York spoke to me:

“This really is the first presidency of the 21st century,” says Simon Rosenberg, head of the Democratic advocacy group NDN. “Those who try to hold on to twentieth-century descriptions of politics are going to be disappointed and frustrated by what’s about to emerge in the new administration, because American politics no longer fits into the old boxes—and neither does Obama. For better or worse, what he is doing is building a new box.”

Read the entire article.